Just Another Hurdle
by emzypemzy
Summary: Everything happens for a reason; Garcia believes that, and she hopes that Tamara Barnes is just a hurdle her and Morgan's friendship most overcome. Garcia's POV. Thought process. ONEshot.


_**a/n: **__So Naidoo offered me a little challenge of sorts...for every chapter she posts of "Not Like That" I have to post something; drabble, one-shot, two-shot, anything...all in aid of re-booting my muse into a more productive state. So let's see where my muse goes, eh?_

_Wrote this a while back so I'm sort of cheating but for the first one editing a forgotten one counts, right? Lol_

_ONEshot. Garcia's POV._

_Disclaimer: I don't own a thing._

**-x-x-x-x-**

I find myself making constant comparisons between myself and Tamara Barnes. I know we look different, I know we act different, I know we _are_ different. And yet I still compare the two of us, I can't seem to help it.

From how large your smile is when you see each of us to how much we can make you laugh and how much you can make us laugh. I find myself comparing from the big to the minutiae, the obvious to the downright bizarre.

I wonder sometimes how I can compete with a beauty such as hers, and then I remind myself that I am confident in who I am, in who I always was and who I will ever be. I am Penelope Garcia, your Baby Girl. That is all I ever need to pick myself back up again, hearing you call me that.

My mind wanders places it ought not to go and I find myself asking whatever's out there if she makes you laugh until you can see the deep crinkles at the sides of your eyes, or until you have to clutch that perfectly formed belly of yours to stop it from aching or until the tears fall from your eyes and there's a distinct rosy glow to your face. I ask myself if she can do all this, wanting to know if what you share compares to what we do; if it's as fun, as flirty, and as comfortable. I really shouldn't torture myself so.

I want to know if she knows that you have tickly knees, that you have a tattoo of a lion on your right shoulder and a tribal pattern on your left arm, just below the sprinkling of small scars from being tackled through the window by Foyet. I want to know how well she knows the contours of your skin; does she know every dimple, line, curve, each texture? Does she know more than me? Does she know you better than I do? God, I hope not. I can't help the possessive feeling that overcomes me when I think that she may do even though I have no right to feel this way and I am painfully aware of this.

Does she know about your other scars? Not the physical ones, the emotional ones. I wonder if in her stages of grief she reached out to you and you poured some of your soul back into her. Does she know every nook and cranny of your dark past like I do? Of your father's death or the burden on your young shoulders when you found that little boy? Does she know about Buford? Or about Gordinski's determination to book you for something, anything? Does she know about the fighting, the acting out, the deep yearning for escape from a place you should have been safe in?

Have you poured your sorrows into her and taken hers from her? You do not need another burden on your already heavy shoulders, that is what I tell myself is my reason for worrying. I know I'm kidding myself, I know that I don't want her to know. It's somewhat selfish, and I hate being selfish, but where you're concerned I'm stuck with these feelings for now.

I wonder if you realise how much you are risking by still seeing her, not just your objectivity if her brother's case were to go to trial and you were called to witness, you are also risking your _self_. But you do not see it. You know true grief, you know true pain and you're setting yourself up for it once again. She can't help it but she's going to take whatever you offer and then some to help herself recover, you'll be her hero; but she'll need you for the long haul and I don't know if you realise just how long this will have to be. I worry for you, but I also worry for her, as much as I dislike her, for taking you a little more out of my life right now. She needs to cling on to someone in the hurricane of emotions that she is in, and you, my Noir Hero, have become someone else's Dark Knight. I have been where she is, I know exactly how she is feeling and I selfishly wish I had known you then because I know you would have stuck with me through all of the emotional ups and downs and pulled me clear of the storm. And that is why I know you will stay with her, help her through it, but will you be able to get yourself out in the end? I'm worried another bit of you will not make it.

You talk about her sometimes, you let slip and try to pretend it's someone else, as if I didn't know, hadn't guessed. And with each time you do you become more open, without really realising what's going on you've told me more than you feel you should, which – in truth – is more than I want to know. Some things should be left unsaid, for the sake of my heart. It's not as strong as it once was.

Even as my heart is pounding in my chest as you speak about her I wonder if you talk to her about me, if you tell her tales of our friendship, sharing our jokes, our moments, our nicknames, our little quirks. I wonder if you two have adopted some of them. That is one thing I know I do not want to know the answer to, as much as my curiosity tugs at me to ask. That would be too much. What if you called her Baby Girl, what would happen to my safety line then? I never want to voluntarily give those two words up and I would have to if the answer was yes.

JJ reminds me that I am your best friend, that we share a bond that nobody has a patch on, that no matter what you will always be there for me, to protect me, to worry about me, to love me. She's quite a believer that Tamara is temporary is JJ. Sometimes it rubs off on me, others I'm still sceptical. She reminds me that I have been there through all of your conquests that no matter who is benefiting from your Casanova lifestyle whenever something major happens in your life it's me that you come to and it forever will be, because, according to JJ, in that aspect Tamara Barnes has never and will never have anything on me.

I hope she's right.

Everything happens for a reason, she parrots my own philosophy back at me. Maybe this is one of those hurdles you must make it over and you'll come out stronger than before, she suggests. That is my saving grace right now; it's what is stopping me from telling you every little thought that has crossed my mind instead writing it down here for only my eyes. This way is safer. If we're meant to make it through this then we will, I believe that, I really do. And I hope that we do, I need my Noir Hero in my life, I always will.


End file.
